I read this in translation,so I can't say for certainmaybe there is some metric by which it is poetry.Maybe the lines are not merelybroken because Sebald felt like it.Perhaps in German this is not prosaic --by which I am not calling Sebald's writingby any means quotidian butI saw no reason it could not bearranged in full text lines.It would sound just the same,it would be easier to follow,it would save space and the lives of trees.Did the trees do something to you,morbid walker of Suffolk,moor-mournful Sebaldus? I like your prose, I do.The Rings of Saturn was great.This is like Rings watered down.It even covers several of the samesubjects (Suffolk, sadness, Edward Fitzgerald)and reads much the same, halftravel guide half thought-piece.But less. Less than Saturn.And I want more. Line breaks are not more.

IMatthias Grünewaldlast great medieval artist,rejector of Renaissance classicism.Married to a convert Jew,although Sebald insists the manwas gay for Neithart.

IINo portrait is known to exist ofGeorg Wilhelm Stellerbotanist, zoologist, physician, explorer,drawer of this sea-cow.Named after him, the species outlived him by only twenty-five years.Except his Jay all othercreatures named for him are nowextinct or in danger of it.

IIIW.G. is not a bit hubristicto include yourself among these greats?Well, let it slide. The past is another country,and anyway,the man is dead.